re: LSU before the turn of the century

Are you....stupid ?????

Did you even like, READ my post RIGHT ABOVE YOURS.??????????

It's really simple, actually. LSU was a good, but not great football program up until 2000. Since then, it has been elevated to a great program. One of the top 5 in the country, since 2000.

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No troll attempt here but I didn't follow NCAA football until 2002... What was LSU football like before Saban and Miles?

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From beginning of time thru 1999, LSU ranks 17th in winning percentage. Won 62.5% of our games.

If you look at beginning of time thru 1988 (the season before our 6 season losing streak began), LSU was 12th in winning percentage (64.7% of our games).

Thru end of 2014, we are 12th in winning percentage all time winning 64.9% of the time.

Not Alabama elite, but in the neighborhood of (or slightly ahead of) other Big Six members like Tennessee, Georgia, Florida and Auburn.

Tennessee is hanging on at #10 despite their rough patch as of late. That is mighty impressive.

6 SEC schools are in the top 20 of all time winning percentage.

Wonder how many Big Ten schools make the Top 20?

Ohio State
Michigan
Penn State
Nebraska

So the Big Ten had to go add a couple of historical powerhouses to make Ohio State and Michigan look better whereas the SEC has 6 charter schools that have been kicking arse since the 1930s.

And then they couldn't even manage to distribute the powerhouse schools equally among their divisions, creating an overweighted East. Combined with an obstinate refusal to change the conference name to be in synch with math that a preschooler in Alabama can grasp and you've got one clusterfark of a conference.

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No troll attempt here

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Same here, my friend.

They were penciled in as a likely win on our schedule

It's funny how Bama fans jump on this and claim LSU was nothing pre Saban, when we beat them on a regular basis in Alabama starting with Bears last year. Along with that , some of their wins in BR during that stretch were miracles.

LSU had as many, or more, major bowl game appearances and big games as anyone in the SEC not named Alabama.


3 SEC championships in 18 years from 70-88
4 Orange Bowls
5 Sugar Bowls
A couple Cotton Bowls
Big OOC matchups that LSU usually won, or played tight great games in.
*USC tight game at home, whipped their arse in LA
*ND and LSU had a 3-3 stalemate series in that stretch
*Played many in PAC ten with favorable results overall UA,UW,OSU,UO
* LSU beat some of A&M's best 80's teams
*Won a big game against FSU in '82
*the Ohio State series was a tie, and a miracle OSU(mike archer screwed the pooch) comeback in Columbus
*Beat South Carolina's best teams to that point
*bowl wins over Texas, Arkansas, Michigan State, Colorado, Wyomings best team ever, Syracuse, Notre Dame, and Clemson

Some great players, great traditions

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They were penciled in as a likely win on our schedule

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In crayon?

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that their history is equivalent to Bama's, their ceiling is the same as Bama's and they've always been considered a national power.

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yeah, i've never heard anyone say anything remotely similar to that

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The twenty something crowd believe they should compete every year

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i'm not in the 20-something crowd, and they should compete every year NOW. NOW is not 25 years ago. What LSu is NOW is not what they once WERE. It has been shown what LSU is capable of with the resources at their disposal. LSU fans shouldn't just settle for less because the program had a down decade that these "20-something" fans of other fan bases think was the state of the program throughout all of LSU history

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I'm not sure who LSU's super bowl is ever year.

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Auburn more than likely. Because Alabama likely would have hired Rich Rod if not Saban and would have hired another coach a few years later.

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I also don't think that Miles would be so criticized.

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true, because LSU likely has at least one more national title

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They seemed to be happy with 8 or 9 wins for 100 years.

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once Saban showed that with the in-state talent LSU has and that if you put money into the program, you can win big and compete for SEC titles almost every year at LSU, then yeah 8-9 wins a year was no longer an acceptable measure. Just like it wasn't acceptable for Richt to do this at UGA.

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Lol, you are not fond of Miles, act like program is being run into ground, and it is mediocre. In 123 seasons now, LSU has won 3 national titles. But you want to crucify the coach responsible for 1 of them. Seriously, you guys contradict your selves.

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Because it's silly to look at it like that. Folks like yourself think Miles bashers miss the forest for the trees, when the reality is that we realize the landscape of college football has shifted substantially since the turn of the century. One Bama fan in here rightly pointed out that he thought LSU was a sleeping giant as far back as the early 90s.

People that share my view would contend that LSU is a hard luck program that has underachieved relative to its resources due to some poor hires and politics. Its true potential was finally realized with Saban and Emmert. Bama has a long and storied history but there is nothing innate there to inhibit us from competing for SEC and national championships in the modern era. Accepting relative mediocrity because we had McLendon, Hallman, and Archer is a mediocre, defeatist attitude.

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1908 - Point-a-minute team, best player in the South at that time (Doc Fenton), and second Southern team to claim an MNC (Vandy 1906 was the first)

1935-1936 - Some great years under Bernie Moore. Unbeaten LSU finished second in the inaugural AP poll to once-beaten Minnesota. The AP was headquartered in the Twin Cities at that time (go figure).

1958-1959 - First great Tigers team that captured the hearts and imagination of the country. LSU practically introduced a multi-squad system that caught on with other teams around the country. Billy Cannon won LSU's only Heisman trophy.

1960s - Some really good teams that could never beat Bear Bryant's Alabama teams. That said, the 1969 team got robbed of a chance for an MNC - Notre Dame got a bowl invite over LSU even though they didn't deserve it (recall that there were far fewer bowls at that time).

1970s - More or less a steady decline under Charlie Mac.

1980s - Some good moments. A couple SEC championships. The Earthquake Game (f you Auburn).

1990s - Bottom fell out with a string of bad coaches. Gerri Dinardo brought back the magic for a sec, but then the bottom fell out on him, too.

I think that pretty much sums it up.

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Great post. LSU really could have 2-3 more MNC than they have. It is what it is, though. Poll championships from way back in the day are exactly what are: mythical. Really not that big of a deal.